Accept - The Rise Of Chaos album review

Germany’s immortal metal heart keeps beating

Continuing the post-reunion run of albums that has firmly re-established Accept as modern guardians of old-school values, The Rise Of Chaos is unlikely to attract those who remain impervious to the atavistic truth of heavy metal, but Maiden and Priest aside, it’s hard to think of another band of this vintage that hit the bull’s-eye with such consistency. Once again produced to speaker-flattening perfection by Andy Sneap, this latest batch of Teutonic anthems is easily the strongest since 2010’s Blood Of The Nations. Opener Die By The Sword (not a Slayer cover, incidentally) and the pummelling Hole In The Head set the tone, with countless thrillingly brutish riffs and moments of sublime melodic showmanship from evergreen lead guitarist Wolf Hoffmann, before the title track briskly encapsulates the whole Accept experience via five minutes of timeless and towering old-school muscle. The rest, from the wonderfully goofy Koolaid to epic finale, Race To Extinction, are equally exhilarating and further proof, as if it were needed, that traditional metal is alive, kicking and as exciting as ever.